The crap going on in Northern Ireland has really affected me. In a dispute over which street children can use to walk to school (!!), kids are walking a gauntlet of an obscenity-hurling mob. I looked at a few shots from these incidents. These are only a couple:

<a href=<http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20010903/capt.999520644northern_ireland_xbft106.jpg>image1

image2

How anyone can do this to kids is incomprehensible to me. As a father, these pictures trigger a visceral response, clear back to my lizard brain, to comfort, protect and defend these children, and to attack their tormentors.

No one calling himself a man could stand in that crowd and do this to kids.

And then someone threw a fucking pipe bomb at them. Two policemen injured, but it could have been kids lying there.

Yes, there are grievances, old and new, and yes, it only takes a couple of bastards among thousands of good people to wreck it for everyone, but these people standing by the road are the "regular" people. There wouldn't be that many otherwise.

If I had solutions for this, I wouldn't be so angry. My pastor was in tears over this during his sermon today. I have to try and explain this to my kids.

Just had to get it off my chest.

* * *

And, just in case we've forgotten...

I hope if the occasion ever arises, I can marshall up half the guts these kids had back then. This six year old didn't quite know what was going on. The nine black teenagers trying to get to Central High certainly did.